Princess in a Tower
by eswigag
Summary: "They're sweet little things, but I don't love them as much as I loved you, Abaddon." Abaddon/Lilith femslash, mentioned past Abaddon/Cain. Set preseries.


**Warnings for:** graphic imagery.

* * *

The Queen of Hell prowled below like a starving lioness, chains rattling after her, the flames beneath illuminating her in red but the prison bars of Lucifer's rib cage hiding the worst of her face. In all the years she'd lived, Abaddon had never seen her face in full. Few had. Abaddon sometimes wondered what she would think when that day finally came - the day when Lucifer's ribs would break and Lilith would emerge, the dark goddess finally free to rage and reign. Was the first demon, their rightful queen, as terrible and beautiful as the First Knight had been? The souls they brought to Lilith, the ones her claws shot out to grab and drag screaming between bones to rip and rend forever, _they_ claimed Lilith was indescribable.

Alastair disagreed. "Little brats with limited imaginations," he called them. "They need their eyes checked… with a welding rod." But when Abaddon asked, he laughed and told her she'd have to see for herself. "I'd hate to ruin the surprise," he said. In that moment, despite how much she liked him, Abaddon dearly wished she could kill him.

She knelt down to the edge of the Pit and tried to avert her eyes. "My Queen," she breathed.

"My Knight," Lilith returned, low and thick with blood. "You came back. You haven't visited me in _ages_. I've been so lonely."

She believed it. "My apologies. I thought your pets would keep you entertained," she lied. She hated this place, everyone did. Hell was where the heart was, but Lilith's cell lay at the bottom of a long labyrinth of intestine and hooks that took years to reach even when the demon was quick and strong and and knew exactly where to go. Enochian magic permeated the air, caught at Abaddon like snares and she had to push through with all the strength she had to get away. Even Lilith's precious Alastair loathed coming here, though admittedly he hated going anywhere besides his own little circle of Hell.

Lilith's chuckles floated up. "They're sweet little things, but I don't love them as much as I loved you, Abaddon," she said. The past tense didn't escape Abaddon's notice and she twisted her head to stare into the eyes that stared back, white as Lucifer's bones in the lightless cave of darkness and fire.

"'Loved,'" Abaddon repeated. She was far too old and too strong to finally start feeling fear. Instead, she felt something akin to disappointment and a wretching, awful grief that felt like the beginnings of wrath. Was she going to be brushed aside and forgotten _again_? "Did you stop loving me, then?" she asked, voice trembling with efforts to suppress her anger.

"You stopped loving me first." Lilith's face split into a ghastly grin. "I heard about Cain. You got what you deserved."

Abaddon wanted nothing more than to smash through Lucifer's bones and tear the smile off Lilith's face with her bare hands. But loyalty to her superiors had been beat into her early on and it was a part of her now, as much as the black of her eyes and the sulfur in her lungs. Besides, attacking Lucifer's bones would only get her hands burned off for her troubles and Lilith laughing at her screams.

That was, if she didn't pull Abaddon in with her, never able to leave her again. Trapped as another one of her pets.

And if Abaddon were to be honest, she could admit to herself that Lilith was right. Cain had chosen her to be his sister, the lone sister in the brotherhood of the Knights, and with his fixation on family, he would never have seen her as anything different. She had been lying to herself for hoping for more. Pathetic. No, it was more than pathetic, it was weak and human and _embarrassing_. Totally unbefitting of someone of her status and reputation.

She wanted to ask Lilith who had told her about Cain so she could hang and quarter them and anyone else they told, but now was not the time. She forced herself to meet Lilith's eyes, forced out the words, "I did." They were a bitter pill to swallow. She swallowed them anyway. "I ask your forgiveness."

Lilith's eyes stared. Abaddon couldn't see her mouth anymore to find a smile or a frown. "Too bad. I don't give it."

For the first time, Abaddon wondered if Lilith would actually strip her of her title and rank as punishment, as she did with demons of any position who she started to dislike. She hadn't expected to Lilith to care enough to be upset with her absence. If the queen ordered it, she could expect to spend the rest of the foreseeable future under Alastair's knife; the last Knight of Hell strung up as a lesson to all, demoted to flesh canvas for Alastair's apprentices.

"Is that your final word, my Queen?" Abaddon asked quietly.

"For now," Lilith said, a warning wrapped in short words and light tone. "Don't do it again, or it will be." Abaddon didn't reply and Lilith didn't blink. After what seemed like an eternity, she smiled, this time much more pleasantly. "It's good to see you again, Abaddon. I really did miss you."

Abaddon raised her eyebrow. "Did you? I hadn't noticed."

Lilith's smile turned sardonic. "My knight in shining armor."

Abaddon smirked. Twisting her hand to her mouth, she blew Lilith a kiss between the bars. Lilith caught it to her cheek almost tenderly, and they started laughing together, echoing through Lilith's cell to send her broken, bleeding pets scurrying for a place to hide.


End file.
